Israeli-American Council (IAC) announces opening of Regional Office in Miami, the first outside of California Featured

Los Angeles, CA, The Los Angeles-based Israeli-American Council (IAC), the largest Israeli-American organization in the Unites States, announced the opening of its first Regional Office in Miami this week to serve the Florida-based Israeli-American community. Some 30,000 Israelis are estimated to live in Florida, mostly in or around Miami.

The IAC Florida Regional Office will immediately begin to launch community building initiatives in keeping with IAC’s mission of building up Israeli-American community which, in turn can help broaden support for Israel, bolster the Jewish and Israeli identity of the next generation, and engage in outreach to the Jewish-American community at large. The new Regional Office is part of IAC’s national growth plan, which includes opening local offices in communities throughout the United States to provide community and national level structure for Israeli-Americans, work together with other organizations to offer support, and through its grant program, provide funding to Israeli-American initiatives throughout the U.S.

Yossi Lahmany, the newly appointed IAC Florida Regional Director brings extensive experience from the non-profit world, most recently as executive director of the Yitzhak Rabin Center. Members of the IAC Florida Regional Council, serving as the local board, include Rani Ben David, chairman and representative to the IAC National Board and community activists Dalia Kalai, Amir Hayun, Ran Regev, and Dr. Neta Peleg Oren.

“The Israeli-American community has been waiting for years for the opportunity to create a network and bring top-tiered programming from coast to coast,” said Mr. Ben David. “We are proud to be the first regional office of the national IAC outside of Los Angeles.”

“The IAC was approached by community leaders, activists and volunteers in Miami, who were willing to donate their time and make financial contributions to form a local IAC Regional Council, in order to build an Israeli-American Community in Miami, bring IAC programs, and support existing activities and programs in their community,” said Shawn Evenhaim, the IAC National Chairman.

The IAC currently helps support 30 organizations related to the Israeli-American community in the United States. It also runs a variety of community programming. Among its projects are Celebrate Israel, the largest Jewish festival in North America; Sifriyat Pijama B’America (SP-BA) the largest Hebrew outreach program in North America, reaching 10,000 families every month in partnership with The Harold Grinspoon Foundation (HGF); IAC BINA, a program for young professional Israeli-Americans and other young Jews, which works to strengthen connections within the community and to Israel; IAC Care, a volunteer community for Israeli and Jewish Americans of all ages in Los Angeles; MISHELANU, a young leadership group on American college campuses where Israeli-Americans come together to strengthen their Jewish and Israeli identities and their ties to Israel; and TZAV 8, which organizes community activists to participate in demonstrations and pro-Israeli activities.